A Story
by Lucius Glade
Summary: Tidus and his bodyguard Kain are forced to deal with change when a creature attacks Zanarkand during a blitzball game. They find themselves in Spira, supposedly 1000 years after Zanarkand was destroyed by Sin. Everything changes.


The bustling city of Zanarkand was even more alive on this night. People flooded the streets, talking excitedly and most of them were headed towards a massive stadium as the sun started to set. One crowd though, was gathered around a large houseboat, seemingly waiting for someone to come out. They too were excitedly chatting and looking towards the door of the boat every couple seconds as if they were trying to wind forward time. Finally the door opened, revealing the blonde haired boy named Tidus, donning a yellow jacket, open wide enough to expose his chest, covered in a black dungaree-type outfit fasted by a small belt with a metal chain. It was obvious by the multiple logos that this was his Zanarkand Abes outfit, including on his black shorts, with his own touch to it.

Behind him came another boy with silver hair, Kain, looking a bit annoyed at the crowd. He wore a large black jacket, falling all the way to his ankles and buttoned from slightly below his neck down to his lower stomach. A grey shirt was slightly visible under his jacket. There was a chain belt wrapped just above his waist holding the coat closed where the buttons stopped and the only thing clearly visible was his black and grey pants and his brown shoes. That, and the long katana that was sheathed on his left side, the chain belt holding it in place.

Kain looked over from the now screaming crowd over to Tidus. "You feeling alright?"

Tidus rolled his eyes and smiled. "I've never been scared when I'm the best in competition!"

He started forward to the elated fans and started signing autographs. A couple minutes of flirting and entertaining the crowd, and Kain walked up from his position leaning against the waterfront house's door.

"Alright, your time is up." Kain slapped Tidus on the back and shook his head. "You're gonna be late."

Tidus turned around. "I know you don't like this stuff, but you should come to the afterparty! It'll be really fun."

Kain sighed. "Maybe."

"Ah! Cmon, you're not doing anything."

Kain snickered. "Are you so sure about that?"

Tidus raised his eyebrows.

"Alright, alright." The silver haired boy raised his hands in a sign of resignation. "I'll go to the party."

"There we go!"

They turned around and were met by three children, one holding a blitzball.

"Two, three…" One of them started.

"Teach us how to blitz!" They said in harmony.

"Hey, I got a game to play." Tidus replied, scratching his head awkwardly. "Maybe...maybe tonight."

"You can't tonight."

Tidus and Kain looked over to the side to see a small boy wearing a purple jacket with a hood and ripped up shorts. No one else looked over and Kain almost said something, but Tidus answered first.

"I mean… tomorrow."

"You promise?" A boy looked up at him with determined eyes.

Tidus raised his fist. "Promise."

The three boys raised their hands over their heads before bringing them down, forming a small circle at their stomach and bowing. Kain looked over at Tidus and motioned towards the stadium, and the two headed off.

The road to the stadium wasn't exactly short, and the two had to hustle to get there on time when they factored in the giant crowd that would most likely mob Tidus on sight. They passed a large light up screen of a shirtless, grinning man on the side of massive building. Tidus looked up. His father, of course. The man who constantly berated his son, then left and sunk his mother into a deep depression. He never liked him in the first place, but after he left he started to hate the man. Arrogant and always patronizing, the man thought everyone was better than him and it pissed Tidus off.

He shook his head and scoffed at the large electronic picture. Kain looked over at Tidus, but shut his mouth and continued on to the stadium

Just as the two expected, there was a gigantic crowd in front of the entrance to the locker room. As soon as Tidus showed his face, he was swarmed by the pack of eager fans. Kain wasn't the biggest of guys, but he stood firmly in front of Tidus as they pushed their way through the excited mass of people. A couple times Tidus stopped to quickly sign an autograph or give a girl a hug, and Kain had to practically drag Tidus to the locker room entrance as he gave the fans a last enthusiastic wave.

"I feel like you made that way harder than it had to be." Kain grumbled.

Tidus beamed. "Hey, I'm the star."

They entered the locker room and found nothing but glaring teammates and a glaring coach. Kain gave them a two fingered wave and propped his back against a wall as Tidus finally joined the team.

"Er, sorry about that. Got a little caught up…" Tidus said, scratching his head.

The coach shook his head. "I guess I should just be glad you're here. Let's talk strategy while we have time."

The team conversed briefly about the different strategies they would employ before the coach called for silence.

"Alright team, let's take this city to victory!"

"YEAH!" The team chanted after him.

They rushed out of the locker room and filed into the blitzball stadium. Kain walked behind them, going down a special path into the stands. His seats were definitely good. As Tidus's bodyguard, he was entitled to the best spot in the house. He had seats directly under the sphere that were to die for.

A few moments, and the blob of water that sat in the middle of the stadium began to expand into massive, glistening sphere. Tiny pyreflies danced around the water, and the crowd that packed each and every row in the stadium went wild.

The match started off intense. Zanarkand had possession of the ball for quite a while, and when they lost it, Tidus shoulder charged into the unfortunate possessor of the ball, sending him shooting out of the water and into the crowd along with a torrent of water. Tidus swam towards the edge of the sphere quickly, giving a smile and a wink before heading back into the game.

"Typical." Kain shook his head and chuckled.

The Zanarkand Abes ended up scoring within the next few minutes and the crowd was going wild. The crowd didn't stop there, however. Soon after, they had spotted the next play that was being setup for Tidus. He was darting towards the top of the sphere and shot out of the water. The ball sprang up between the arms of two defenders and shot out of the water, lining up with him. He began to flip backwards, preparing to send a flying shot into the goal.

Then he saw it.

What looked like a giant mass of water was advancing slowly towards the sphere. Even more threatening though, were the bullets of pure energy being shot towards him at speeds he couldn't even comprehend.

The explosions ripped through the city and waves crashed through the streets up to the top of buildings. Statues shattered, buildings ripped apart, people washed away in the harsh currents. Kain jumped up from his seat as smoke filled the stadium and the water from the arena began to filter out the bottom in massive amounts. He kept his eyes on Tidus and watched him grab onto a ledge not far from where he was. Kain rushed over to the spot, and not a moment too soon, as Tidus lost his grip with water still pouring from above and landed on him, taking them both to the ground.

The two teenagers got up, grimacing.

"Agh, thanks."

Kain brushed himself off. "No time, let's go."

They headed out of the collapsing stadium along with thousands of panicking spectators. It took them awhile to get to the entrance, but when they did they saw the full range of the damage. The entire entrance was ruined. Pillars smashed, water flowing from the remnants of the sphere, and chaos in the streets.

Running down the water filled staircase, they stopped upon spotting a familiar man donning a red coat not far from the entrance.

"Auron!" Tidus exclaimed.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Kain wondered aloud.

They ran over to him, but he continued looking towards the chaos on the street as if he hadn't noticed them.

"What are you doing here?" Tidus asked.

"Waiting for you two." Auron said, still not looking at them. Then, he walked away farther into the chaos.

"Waiting for us?" Kain called after him, but he was already too far away.

Tidus and Kain looked at each other. This was nothing new. Auron was a mysterious bastard, but this was no time to be withholding information.

With a shrug from Kain, they ran after Auron.

Something that troubled Kain on the roads was that people were running _away_ from the direction Auron was headed. They were on a path straight towards whatever was tearing up the city. He didn't know what Auron was up to, but he hoped that he actually had some sort of plan. After all, Auron could be difficult but that didn't mean he wasn't a complete lifesaver. Auron was the one who trained Kain in the first place and he was a damn good fighter. Kain would dare say he was a master with that massive blade that he carried. Even though there was no way in hell a normal person could wield that, Auron made it look like nothing.

Then they stopped.

Kain had been so deep in his thoughts, he didn't notice that literally everything had halted around him. Not just the sound, which he initially thought, but people were frozen in place as though someone had taken a photo of the scene. He turned to the side and saw Tidus looking behind him, quickly following his gaze.

It was the boy from before.

"It begins."

"Wha-?" Tidus began.

The boy looked up towards him.

"Don't cry."

Before either of them could react, the chaos of the current situation returned to normal and screams flooded back into reality. Tidus looked at Kain, bewildered.

"Did-"

"No time." Kain cut him off.

Whatever the hell they had just seen, it couldn't be addressed. Kain couldn't lie, he was scared to hell, but there were still fires raging next to them and people in complete disarray. They had to find Auron and find him fast. Luckily for them, it didn't take that long.

Today, Auron seemed to be indulging in his nasty habit of mysterious behavior. When the two approached him, he still didn't look at them. Instead, he pointed upwards at something floating above them in the sky.

It was a giant floating sphere of water, not unlike the one in the blitzball arena, except 10 times larger. In the middle of it seemed to be some sort of massive, whale like creature, distorted by the water. The gargantuan sphere seemed to slowly move it's way forwards, pulling buildings

and water into it as if it had an orbit.

"We called it 'Sin.'" Auron said, with a small hint of sorrow in his voice.

"Sin?" Kain asked. "What the hell is it?"

If Auron was going to respond, he wasn't able to. A massive black tentacle shot from the sphere of water and impaled itself in a nearby building. It seemed to have a wavering antenna and the tip was glowing a blue-greenish color. It soon became apparent that the glow wasn't just natural, but it was hundreds of tiny scales, and they flew off of the antenna and embedded themselves in the road ahead of the trio. Some of them opened up to reveal mosquito-like creatures, except the size of a large vulture, skittering across the bridge in their direction.

Kain didn't hesitate to unsheathe the katana from his belt, gripping it in both hands and taking a fighting stance.

"Guess I'll get to put this training to the test, huh Auron?" Kain smirked.

Auron drew a red sword from inside the back of his jacket and held it in front of Tidus.

"Take it. A gift from Jecht."

Tidus looked skeptical. "My old man?"

He finally reached for the sword and struggled with it a bit before holding it upright and giving a few test swings at the sinspawn in front of them.

"I hope you know how to use it." Auron said, drawing his own sword and holding it across his shoulder.

Kain ran forward and sliced upwards through one of the creatures, dispelling it into a burst of pyreflies.

"These ones don't matter. We cut through!" Auron ordered.

That they did. The trio sliced through sinspawn, making their way down the bridge until they encountered the massive tentacle that unleashed the creatures initially. The giant sinspawn shuddered and 5 of the small sinspawn embedded themselves in the ground and popped into their winged form.

Auron signaled Tidus and Kain back. He held his sword in front of him momentarily, then, surprising both Tidus and Kain, leapt in the air and drove his sword deep into the ground. The mini sinspawn burst in separate explosions, reduced to pyreflies that floated upwards into infinity. The bigger sinspawn shuddered in pain and shook violently. Kain felt like he was being stretched out and winced as a pressure seemed to wash over the three of them. It ended after a minute and the sinspawn calmed it's shaking.

Kain took no hesitation in running towards the monster and slashing his sword down the length of it, causing it to shake in pain again. Tidus followed up, flipping forward and slamming his sword down the monster's body. It started to shake again, but before it could unleash it's attack, Auron walked forward and drove his massive sword into the monster and it drooped downwards, tip no longer glowing. It seemed to fade away into a mass of pyreflies; they raced around the sky briefly before disappearing from sight.

The three spared no time and continued up the bridge. Tidus looked over to the side, spotting a building with the face of Jecht smirking down at them.

"What are you laughing at, old man?"

Kain almost said something, but he thought better of it. There was no point trying to calm Tidus down now.

Auron stopped, and the 2 teenagers did as well.

"Auron, when are we gonna get out of here?" Kain asked with worry in his voice.

"We're expected." He replied.

"Huh?" Tidus was just as confused as Kain was.

They started to continue forward on the bridge, but another wave of sinspawn revealed themselves to block their path. This time, nearly all of the scales changed into the winged creatures, and the trio found themselves surrounded by more sinspawn than they could see.

Kain looked towards Auron for guidance. If anyone knew how to get out of this situation, it was him.

"That," Auron pointed towards a metal tanker hanging halfway off of the bridge, "knock it down!"

Kain was astounded. "Uh, are you sure?"

"Trust me. You'll see."

Kain nodded. He flipped his hand over and formed a ball of dark energy in the middle of his palm. Then, when it was about the size of a blitzball, Kain pushed his hand forwards and the ball shot towards the tanker, causing a small, black explosion on impact. The metal contraption split, and one half dangled, then fell off of the side.

The effect took about 2 seconds to become clear. A massive explosion rocked the bridge beneath them, and they saw the building with Jecht's face start to rumble. Tidus stepped back just in time, as the building smashed down and disconnected half of the bridge, along with the sinspawn.

"Go." Auron said, and he jumped off the bridge onto the collapsing building.

Kain jumped after him, followed by Tidus. They struggled to dodge debris and fire, narrowly avoiding being roasted alive by the aftermath of explosions that still surged through the building.

The other half of the bridge was coming up. Auron and Kain landed cleanly on the other side. Tidus, jumping at the last second, barely made it and ended up grappling onto the edge.

Kain started for him, but he found he couldn't move at all, as if he was being pulled from behind. He looked behind him and saw the massive creature that Auron had called 'Sin'. He could see it clearly now, although he still couldn't tell what it was. What he did see, was an opening, and it appeared to be sucking everything up below it, including him.

"Auron! Auron! Kain!" Tidus was still hanging from the edge as the bridge began to lift into the air.

Kain felt weightless, but at the same time, he couldn't move at all. The thing was above him now, and he was struggling just to keep his head turned towards Tidus and Auron.

Auron turned his head up to look at Sin. "You are sure?"

He paused briefly before turning back to Tidus. With little effort, he grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up. He turned his head towards Kain.

"This is it. This is your story. It all begins here."

Tidus and Kain's screams could be heard as they were drawn into the light of Sin.


End file.
